


Twelve White Horses

by malvo



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: M/M, this fic is what happens when someone who cannot fic thinks of a fic and tries to fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:13:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2359166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malvo/pseuds/malvo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Numbers is captain of a pirate ship, with a thing for one of the crewsmen. After Wrench is killed in a storm, a siren appears bearing an exact resemblance to him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve White Horses

Twelve white horses pulled the moon like a carriage across the sky. The spinning wheels left a trail of light streaked into the clouds, and their hooves were thunder.  
The clatter echoed out of the darkness and faded into nothing.  
The storm grew strong.   
Monochrome clouds battled for dominion, and in less than half an hour there was barely a fleck of blue in the sky, hardly a spot left over by a careless artist. This storm was precise, and destructive. It turned the sky into a soup - stirring and boiling with a peppery rage.

Twelve white horses broke free of their reins and cantered, raising hell with their whinnies, leaving the pale moon circled by a violent grey mist. One looked down at the scene unfolding.

A boat spilled down from the top of a wave that could have been a mountain.  
The vessel had the feeling of a pirate ship, but the mast was bent and bruised, kicked and worn. The flag, such a symbol, had been torn and ruined and lost to the wailing wind. The rest of the ship seemed, miraculously, intact.

The horses, still watching, began to drum a steady rhythm on the ground. Thunder beat and rumbled. The world shook, and they stood proud above their destruction.

* * * * * * * *

The captain of the ship called himself Numbers.  
He sat in his quarters, head resting heavily on the palm of one hand, and ran calloused fingers along the wood grain of his desk. Down here was built to be the room least affected by turmoil, in order to leave him time and headspace to think, but it was proving unsuccessful. He could feel the thunder in his chest.  
His ship rocked and cracked above and beneath him, and he was certain he had never been so alone.

"Cap'n!" The voice was loud, with a sense of urgency. Numbers raised his eyebrows and lifted his head wearily to take in the panic echoing off the polished wood. "C'mere!"  
Numbers sighed.

* * * * * * * *

Numbers blew hard on his hands. His feet thudded on the deck, but the noise was drowned out by a thousand grey-blue foals as they fell from the sky around him. Glancing around, he caught sight of a tall crewman waving through the fog. A string twisted around the fingers of the man's right hand.  
When Numbers crossed the ship, it was handed to him silently, with a fearful smile. His eyes were open and earnest, but not without determination. This man had seen worse than a storm.  
The rope was attached to the sail but not, he observed, to the boat.

The man preferred to be referred to as "Wrench". None of the crew ever knew his real name, as only the captain understood his signs, so it stuck.

At this moment, the signs came with a frantic pace. "Tore off when I went past. Caught it well, but I ain't good enough to put it back... don't wanna risk it..." Lowering his hands, Wrench dragged his foot across the ground, but Numbers laid a hand gently on his shoulder, smiling - a minor difficulty due to the height difference between him and this man, but it seemed right. The action felt unnatural with anybody else.  
"It's the best thing to do, man... I'm proud of you, not riskin' the ship for pride. Yeah, we're pirates, but there's goin' too far. You're good," he signed back. He caught Wrench's eyes, but quickly glanced away.  
The response was a swallow and a nod.  
Numbers, returning his face to its usual disgruntled-captain look, tied the string back into place.

Four hours passed before the horses pulled their old carriage away and a new one was brought in, replacing the darkness with a bright golden light. The colour was magnified by the fog until it hurt the eyes of the sailors.  
Four hours passed before the wind ceased its tuneless singing.  
Four hours passed before Numbers' breathing became less ragged, and the thunder left his chest. The fog still remained, cloaking the vessel like a shroud.

He called his crew over and surveyed their faces. Their emotions were books, and every one was a separate genre - some radiated fear with faces blanched, others relief and a select few breathed heavily in a complete unadulterated joy at surviving the ordeal.  
Two men had, to his knowledge, been lost, but it was little hardship - the group was large and in truth he only knew one name yet.  
His dark eyes perused the scene, pausing and flicking between the heads, scanning with increasing dread. Eleven faces noticed his face falling. Eleven faces looked back at him, confused.  
Eleven. Not the expected twelve.  
None were the face he needed.

"Anybody seen Wrench?" Numbers scratched at his beard, ensuring his voice remained steady. "Last I saw him he was at the mast... Helped him fix the sail."  
Eleven faces looked around. Three began to roll their heads on their necks, avoiding eye contact with their captain. One raised his hand and, with a jerked nod from Numbers, stepped forward...

"Wrench," he said, "fell."  
Numbers' stomach clutched. He feigned confusion and murmured, "Fell?"

The scene was laid out in excruciating detail. Three men had been trying to steer, Wrench didn't hear their screams when the wave came. They were too far away, even if they ran. There was nothing they could do. Wrench's body had been nothing more than a ragdoll, ripped by the sea...

"Okay, stop, stop, ENOUGH." Numbers turned his head and waved a hand in front of himself weakly.  
He'd save his tears for later, when he had some time alone. Sensitivity was not valued in a pirate life, especially not by the captain, especially not in this case, where love had been for another man as it should have been for a woman.

* * * * * * * *

Two sharp knocks resounded into the captain's quarters. "Yes?"  
"Cap'n," the source slurred his words. "We's celebratin' survivin' the horses - you joinin' us..."  
The horses. A legend, but one those who didn't understand the weather loved. That was most people.  
"I'll be good, man. Congratulations on gettin' this far. There's booze in the hold... though it's seemin' you found it already..."  
There was a bustling outside accompanied by a community of staged whispers - "how did he know?". One of the crewman on the other side of the wood then made a noise of acknowledgement, and soon the sound of retreating footsteps faded. Numbers dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed hard. One hand pulled away and grasped to his left for a glass of bitter red blood.

Twelve white horses watched him. With a flick of their manes and a call to the heavens, they galloped onto the rocks.  
The swirling grey cloak worn by the ship split and rose, and with it a cheer sounded from the deck. Twelve beautiful voices harmonised behind it. Numbers sat rapt, but in a moment he was back to his senses, out of the room and into a cacophony of noises.  
"Cap'n! Cap'n! NUMBERS!" Numbers cracked his neck turning to find the source of the call. It was the ship's cook.  
"Yes?"  
"The fog's clearin'!" A wide-armed gesture to the right. The captain of the pirates watched as the curtains opened to a cluster of rocks.

On the cluster sat twelve young singers.  
Their voices were sweet, and they sang songs of love and joy, and as Numbers stared in disbelief the remaining sailors were drawn to the ship's edge. They reached out and touched the air in front of them, mouths gaping and eyes pleading.

Sirens.


End file.
